Chapter 12 - What My Daughter Knew
Dad sent the recording of Margaret's threat to Ortiz. Tessa requested additional protective restrictions, and the school changed its pickup procedure.
Sophie was safe, but safety was beginning to feel like a list of places she could no longer go.
She stood at Dad's kitchen window and watched two neighborhood children ride bicycles past the yard.
"Am I in trouble?" she asked.
"No, sweetheart."
"Then why do I have to hide?"
I had no perfect answer.
"Because grown-ups have made dangerous choices," I said. "We're making careful ones until they can't hurt us."
She stared at the bandage on my wrist.
"Daddy said you were going to take the house away from us."
"The house was Grandma Joan's gift to me. It belongs to our family, but nobody gets to hurt somebody over a house."
Sophie nodded, absorbing more than a child should have to.
"Grandma Margaret told Daddy she would take care of the recordings," she said. "She said a lady couldn't prove anything without a picture."
"When did you hear that?"
"Before the stairs. I was getting my fox."
My pulse quickened. I kept my voice steady.
"Did you hear what they meant?"
"No. But Daddy was mad because the little blue box wouldn't turn off."
I called Ortiz. The detective told me investigators had arranged a search of the relevant rooms under a warrant and had collected the camera-removal paperwork. They were still looking for Sophie's recorder.
"Would he have thrown it away?" I asked.
"Possibly. We don't know yet."
That night Dad found me standing outside Sophie's bedroom, staring at her shoes lined up against the wall.
"You don't have to solve it tonight," he said.
"I should have noticed. The bank statements, the cameras, the way he talked to her. I kept telling myself he was tired."
Dad shook his head. "He chose to lie. You chose to trust the person you married. Those aren't the same thing."
From inside the room, Sophie called, "Mommy, will you read to me?"
I opened the door. She had tucked the stuffed fox under her blanket.
As I sat beside her, I noticed a loose seam near its tail, carefully closed with two mismatched stitches.
"Honey," I asked, "did Fox get hurt?"
May you like
Sophie hugged him closer.
"He had to hide something," she whispered.
